


How it began

by Aurea_the_Auramonster



Series: Half Moon's ARK [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan, 大神 | Okami (Video Games)
Genre: Backstory, Blood, Celestial Brush, Death, Gen, Morals, Narrated like Black Beauty, Tears, inner conflict
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 10:24:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11102583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurea_the_Auramonster/pseuds/Aurea_the_Auramonster
Summary: How did Commander Half Moon come to be?A snippet about bonds, morals, titans, a wind god, and how curiosity can get you everything- or nothing.





	How it began

In the distance, the wall we had spotted earlier came into view. It had to reach at least fifty meters into the sky and from what I could see from this distance, it was quite thick as well. I turned my head to check behind me, seeing my friend and and dubbed 'partner in crime' gallop in long strides at my right. I whickered at him, and he grins at me, a playful glint in his eye. He was smaller by at least ten centimeters, maybe even twenty, and had a dashing white coat with golden speckles on his shoulders, neck, and face. His eyes were a golden brown, his nose had a grey and light pink patch and his hooves were a light grey with even lighter, yellowish stripes. More important were the crimson markings on his head, neck and hinds, indicating his godhood. His name was Kazegami "Sidi", God of the Wind, user of the 'Galestorm' brush technique. 

Now you'd think that a God would be serious, stoic and distant. Sidi was the exact opposite. He was extremely curious, careless, and had little to no self control. He also had an extremely short temper, was arrogant, always had an opinion and had the neutral expression of an angry serial killer. Despite all that though, he was kind to everyone he knew well enough, and loved to run and explore, especially using his galestorm to do so. Free as the wind, but just as reckless. 

I ran ahead of him and got closer and closer to the wall, which began blocking out the sunlight as we entered it's massive shadow. I forgot to mention that Sidi wasn't nearly as fast as he liked to believe, and that I could outspeed him without that much difficulty, meaning I reached the wall a lot earlier than he did. I slowed to a trot and waited for him to catch up while scanning my surroundings. The land was pretty much bare, covered in grass and with a tree here and there. Also, there were a couple of giants near what appeared to be the entrance.

Gaints were large, naked humanoids and appeared to be the equivalent up humans in this universe. They were capable of photosynthesis (we never saw them eat so there is no other option other than that they create their own energy), had no reproductive or digestive systems and could be heavily deformed. They ranged from small, 3 meter high mini-giants to about 20 meters into the sky, as far as we'd seen them anyway. Now when the two of us first encountered the giants in the plains, two of them, covered in what appeared to be blood of the-stars-know-what, we freaked out and sort of went all attack mode on them. When Sidi sliced the nape of the neck on one with his celestial brush, it died almost right away. But after that, we noticed that it's buddie showed absolutely 0 interest in us. That's how we figured that these guys posed no threat. We leave them alone, they leave us alone. Seemed fair. We had no reason to be scared of them.

I did wonder why there were so many at this entrance though, there was at least thirteen of them. When I got closer, I noticed something: there was a hole in the entry gate. I whipped my head around and cried to Sidi, letting him know it was time to change course. I slowed down even further and he caught up, giving me a burst of wind from the rear and he positioned himself behind me. I jumped back into a slow gallop and began to swerve between the legs of the giants, avoiding their limbs while plotting a course directly for the wall hole. I wanted to see what was behind it and, naturally curious as my partner usually was, I knew I wouldn't get any objections from Sidi. I made a break for my right when a giant decided it wanted to set it's foot down right in front of me, forcing me to zigzag through the legs of another giant in order to pass through the hole. I checked with one ear if Sidi was still behind me; he wasn't, but I couldn't stop moving or I'd be crushed. 

 

I sprinted to the wall and pressed myself against it, letting out a call. "Sidi! Where you at?!"  
It took the bastard ten seconds to reply, giving me at least three separate mental breakdowns. "I'm over here!" The Arabian was pressed against the wall as well, wheezing through his nose but with a cocky expression on his face.  
Naturally, I snarled at him. "Stay closer next time! I thought a giant stepped on your ass."  
The second the shit-eating grin made it's appearance, I knew I messed up. "My ass is too big for a giant to step on." He panted.  
I groaned in annoyance. Of course he'd go for the ass joke. "Could you do the universe a favor and shut up?"  
"Never." He remarked, the douchebag expression still firmly in place. "But we better move, before we end up as pulp."

 

We made a break for the hole in the wall, avoiding three more giants on the way and storming to the other side of the massive stone structure. Surprisingly, there were less titans on the inside than there were on the outside. Even more surprising was the amount of human-sized houses present on the inner side of the wall, all within super close proximity to each other. And, most notably, most of them were completely destroyed.

We cantered through the broken city. Out of pure curiosity, we decided entered a few random houses. All were ruined, the roofs had come off and there was a bloody substance sprinkled pretty much everywhere. One had an intact living room, quite a few had several intact chairs and tables and we even found one with a completely untouched staircase with a basement. When we tried to get in however, it was locked, so we went on and tried a couple of other houses just for the thrill of walking through destroyed buildings of which the remains could collapse at any given time. Sidi, the moron, poked a couple of planks with his hoof and had to run for his life when the whole construction came down on him. That was also the moment when we decided it best to just head further inwards. 

Hooves beating rythmetically on the grass, we went past the second wall - apparently the one we stormed through was just a small thorn - and continued out way to the center of the huge construction. We had a discussion about why giants would need such tiny houses, and quickly came to the conclusion that this whole thing was just really freaking old. We theorised that giants probably evolved from humans a long time ago and that this was all that was left of the ancient society, a theory that greatly exited the both of us. Eventually, we reached the fields, a mix of what we thought to be farmland, old forest ground and actual forests with trees taller than your average giant. We crossed over most of them, and eventually reached another city. What we found there completely blew our theory out of the water.

Human bodies.

Covered in blood both their own and from the ones around them. Missing heads, legs, arms, half-torn apart limbs with bones jutting out of them attached to shattered and destroyed open bodies. Lonely hands, ears, scalps, or other body parts brutally ripped from their owners and littered across a ruined and bloody cobblestone street. And sometimes, faces. Forever frozen in their final moments of terror as their life was being stolen away from them and tossed aside along with everything else they lost moments before. The stench of rotting remains drowned out everything else, and the overwhelming atmosphere of the fear and horror still drifted from house to broken house, body to rotting body, soul to long gone soul. The term 'graveyard' barely applied, there was no tranquility, no calm silence, no peaceful rest. Only the terrible sight, sound, smell of death.

It was overwhelming. My brain grew foggy, my eyesight grew spots, there was a dull buzz in my ears and my entire body seemed to be three times as heavy. I didn't know if we should storm through as fast as we could or stop moving altogether, but my stomach chose the latter. I envied Sidi for not being able to throw up, because my stomach acid began bubbling uncomfortably as soon as I breathed in at the bloody sight in front of me. I almost choked on the horrible taste that shot into my mouth and averted my eyes, spitting on the ground and holding my breath. Sidi was extremely worried, but I just shook my head. Maybe he couldn't throw up, but that didn't mean he wasn't as unsettled - no, terrified was more like it - as I was. 

 

"Holy shit." I heard him whisper. "What happened here...?"

I coughed several times and blinked away the tears welling up in my eyes. "I don't even want to know, but I have a pretty good guess..."

He nodded, pressing his soft nose to my flank and forcing me away from the broken, red-tinted village. "Let's get out of here. My instincts are telling me we should stay as far away from this place as we can." 

 

So did mine. Sidi used his abilities to blow the wind the other way, removing the smell from our noses. After what seemed like forever I regained control of my nerve system and began to move. We went to a creek nearby and drank some water, me getting the horrible taste of acid out of my mouth and at the same time regaining some clarity in my head. We flopped into the grass and stayed silent for a while, recovering from something we'd never wanted to see. Despite all that though, it took us a full 30 minutes before we were both steady enough to continue. 

We avoided all villages we came across like the plague. We kept going around them in large circles, making sure to keep our noses downwind just in case. We ran for quite a while in complete silence. The sun had almost begun setting by the time we reached what we thought to be the other side of the walled construction. There were a lot more giants here, all clawing up at the wall like brainless idiots. When we got closer however, we realized why.

There were humans up the wall.

Standing proudly, all in the same odd brownish jackets and ridiculously long boots, wrapped in leather straps and with a logo consisting of a shield with two red roses stuck on them. It shocked the hell out of us and we quickly deduced that this wasn't the other side of the wall, it was another, completely different wall, like the second layer of an union. The first wall we found had a giant hole in it, meaning the giants got in and caused all that destruction. This wall was still intact, and the humans were currently behind it, protecting themselves from the giants and continuing their lives there. Not all humans had ended up like the ones in that village. There were still some left. All behind this giant wall...

Our excitement got the best of us and we stormed up to the stone structure. We wanted to see what was behind this one as well, so we approached and quickly reached the edge. As usual the giants didn't acknowledge our existence. The humans, however, did. They began shouting to each other and pointing at us. We didn't have much time to pay attention to them however, as we once again had to start avoiding giant feet. There was no entrance into the interior of the wall here, so we had to be clever. I came up with the idea to swim. Humans needed water, so there had to be a body of water along the edge here somewhere. We went around and in less than ten minutes we found what we were looking for: a river. 

I dove in first. The entrance to the interior was barred of course, though I highly doubted giants could swim, but there was enough space left open under the bars for us to swim under. I came back up and hoisted myself back on land beside my partner in crime, and we both glanced up, staring the humans crowding to check us out straight in the eyes. I smirked, and my sixth sense told me Sidi was doing the exact same thing. I heard a splash; Sidi had launched himself into the water and was already under. The guy had balls, you had to give him that. I jumped in after my friend, swam closer to the wall and and sucked in a big gulp of air. I forced my body underwater and swam down, looking at Sidi's wavy tail through squinted eyes while trailing behind him. We reached the bottom of the river and swam on out sides, fitting ourselves easily through the opening between the ends of the steel bars and the riverbed. We made faces at each other as we floated back up to the surface, and neither of us was even close to out of breath when we got back up, even though we had been underwater for a good 30 seconds. 

We swam for a bit through the tunnel that ran under the wall and eventually made it out, scrambling for a solid grip on the riverbank and wriggled ourselves out of the water. We both shook ourselves out like dogs; pretty useless because we were standing so close and we basically just transferred our droplets to each other. When we were done laughing and a bit less soaked, we looked around and noticed something was really, really off. All the humans were staring at us. Some were pointing, others had slack jaws, and even more people were getting out ropes, a greedy expression on their faces. Several brown jacket wearing people - the same ones from up the walls - with weird metal gear on their waists and wrapped in leather straps just stood and stared. The tension rose. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong. I mentally braced myself for something, I didn't know what yet, but something.

 

They all stormed at us in the exact same second. A wall of sound hit my ears as a stampede of greedy monsters advanced on us, ropes and guns in hand, ready to get their hands on us. I heard Sidi shriek in surprised terror and I bashed him in the neck before charging straight ahead, a tactic known as plan B, Sidi in tow. We accelerated and met the humans head-on, and in the unanticipated reaction we gave most of them jumped out of the way. We stormed away from the yelling humans, screaming and hollering commands at each other in words I could fully understand, which made it much more terrifying. Sidi was to my left, breathing heavily but keeping up with me, his ears flat and teeth bared in anger. I felt the strong wind he was whipping up blow from behind, giving us a noticeable speed boost as we made a break for the distant row of houses marking the edge of the town. Shocked and scared humans jumped and stumbled out of our path, sometimes pulling others with them to safety. We trampled and bashed away everything in our path: crates, animals, humans, nothing was safe from our desperate attempt to get away from the ropes and gunfire and flying-

Wait, FLYING?!

My head whipped to the right at the sound of a steel rope being pulled in on itself, similar to a vacuum retrieving it's own electricity cable after use. Less than a moment later, a human male in the same red rose uniform as all the ones on top of the wall flew into my pherepal vision. A set of cables with silver grappling hooks on the ends shot out from the odd contraption on the human's waist and drilled themselves into the wall of a house before pulling in, making the soldier fly to the wall - or rather, to us. I let out a yell and swerved to the left, ramming into Sidi to get him out of the way of the looped rope that swung past a second later, and accelerated. 

The gears in my brain were spinning at maximum capacity. How in the hell were humans able to fly?! Because of the gear, yes I understood that much, but my personal experience was that humanoid bodies were everything but built for the 3rd dimension. It was straight up not possible. And yet, these humans - several more uniformed flyers had appeared on both our sides, and a saw Sidi eying them with a look that told me he was gonna pull his Celestial Brush soon - were seemingly dancing in mid-air, effortlessly soaring through the air like freaking hawks. 

 

I didn't understand any of it, but my adrenaline-filled bloodstream decided to do the talking for me. At that moment, time froze. I felt it coming, I always did, but the feeling was nevertheless annoying. I rolled my eyes to the back just in time to see my golden-speckled partner freeze the moment and pull out his Celestial Brush, his usually invisible red markings and spiralling mane on full show for this instant only. He drew the Galestorm mark: a graceful spiral in mid-air, in the direction the wind should follow, giving it the direct command to blow our airborne threats back. He put the black-inked brush away and unfroze time, and almost right away I felt the summoned Galestorm hit my face, forcing my eyes closed. 

I didn't stop moving however, still angling to the left, aiming to make a u-turn. Sidi seemingly understood, adapting his gallop angle to mine. The first rows of houses flew past us. I saw opportunities everywhere, but I had to be able to warn Sidi of the turn in advance or we'd lose all speed. And speaking of speed, the flying humans were catching up to us at breakneck pace, which didn't exactly help my confidence in all this.

I saw a pair of houses up ahead that would make the perfect launching pad of we could hit them correctly. I accelerated further, trying to gain momentum for the return sprint we'd have to make. Almost there. My heartbeat drummed in my ears, blocking out the ruckus around us, pumping oxygen through my system to keep it running at it's current pace. This was one of the most dangerous manoeuvres I checked Sidi to my left, and he gave a solid nod. Almost. Almost...! 

With a determined, shrill cry, I launched myself off the ground completely and caught myself vertically on the cobble house wall, using all limbs to propel myself off and continue in the opposite direction at the same speed with which I had jumped. Two clangs behind me and then the continued sound of a second set of hooves let me know Sidi had also completed the maneuver safely. We were on our way to the wall again, our pace having only been interrupted for two seconds. I suppressed the urge to laugh at the shocked faces of the flying humans, who hadn't expected our sudden turnaround. 

 

That victory was short-lived however. The crowd we had charged at earlier was back and they weren't very happy. They aimed their guns at us but Sidi blew off their aim with a powerful Galestorm, buying us time. We ran to the wall and tried breaking through the crowd blocking off our way to the river, but we were caught on almost immediately. I forced Sidi to the wall and shielded him with myself, and by some miracle, he made it through. I wasn't so lucky, and with the screaming mob of humans so close on me, but I saw no other option. One of us is better than none of us. I screamed, the sound tearing through the dome of human voices that surrounded me. "Run! Get out of here!"

I couldn't see him anymore, there was too many of them. They pulled at my mane and tail and legs, shouted in my ears and throwing their ropes at me. I jumped with all fours to create a little relief, kicking back while in midair and almost smiling at the satisfying sound of a bone breaking and humans screaming in fear, despite the situation. 

I could hear Sidi's terror-laced voice reach out to me. "NO!" 

"There's no time!" I hollered, biting and kicking away at the many bodies, some of which were moving towards Sidi as well now. "Go! Run while you still can!" I had to convince him, any hesitation now would get us both captured. There was no time to argue. My voice almost cracked with desperation. "Just RUN!"

The sound he made broke my heart, a sad and longing whinny filled with regret. 'I'm sorry.' I could not have been more relieved however when I heard the sloshing of water and a plop of something diving under. I bit in front of me and opened my eyes - when had I closed them? - now focusing on the river, which showed no signs of him and no signs of humans about to jump in either. He was gonna make it. He was gonna make it!

That knowledge gave me the strength I needed. Filled with a new determination, I began spin kicking everything I could hit. Soldiers were swarming the river, blocking my way out, but I hadn't expected to get off easily anyway, so my backup plan was put in motion that very instant. I fought the crowd, kicking stomachs, bones, even skulls, and somehow - I don't know how - managed to get out and break into a run. I was tired, my muscles burned, two lungs weren't nearly enough for this kind of exercise and yet, I didn't feel any discomfort, only a weird, numbing haze that forced me to move. In hindsight, I probably had more adrenaline than blood in my body at that point, so that wasn't very surprising.

I galloped in between the houses, using everything I had to move as swiftly as I could manage in the state I was in. I ran from the wall, from the screaming crowd, from all the danger... but also from Sidi. I bit back the scream of pure rage that rose at that realisation, and accelerated instead, heading further into the land of the walls and all that lay within it, all that I had yet to learn of.

And with that, it began.


End file.
